Everyone on Steepster, PLEASE read this...

Added Bonus/something that will make you want to wash your eyes out with soap:

If we make our goal, I WILL dance a jig of gratitude AT the World Tea Expo this May and post a video of said horrifying performance for backers to see! Incidentally, I am 6’8, close to 400lbs and it will be a miracle if the convention hall can withstand such a dance. If I don’t break the convention hall, I’ll likely break something of myself, so pledge now if you want to see me make a fool of myself.

Freudian Slip?

Not only am I starting to become uncomfortable with the amount of fundraisers you have posted to Steepster, but I am confused as to why you are doing this as a Kickstarter rather than choosing other methods to promote your tea. Is it an advertising cost issue? People have a choice to buy from a Kickstarter, or from your website. The prices seem like they’re the same, so why wouldn’t I go through your website?

Oh, because there’s a Kickstarter-only value pack of 8 teas for $12?

Quite frankly, that seems like a huge profit loss to me, especially compared to your 1/$4. How will selling your teas for SO MUCH less allow your company to make enough money so you don’t have to do another Kickstarter? Redesigning a website and going to the World Tea Expo seem like they should be business costs that are factored in and budgeted for throughout the year.

I’m not sure how Kickstarter works, I’m not a drinker of iced teas, AND I’m rarely the voice of reason, but on this one, unless Jason et al ask Frank to reign it in, I think it’s fair for him to post. I get the impression that there have been money struggles, but this is part of the attempt to make it or break it. Of course we don’t have to contribute but it seems fair enough to ask. 52Teas used to be an extremely popular company with the Steepster set. I think that 52Teas/SBT has somewhat fallen out of favour but I see this as an attempt to revive it all or at least find out the situation and maybe move forward accordingly.

I do know there have been a number of kickstarters for Frank already, but again, until Kickstarter or the Steepster overlords cut him off, I think it’s fair to try to sell his ideas to his target market. I won’t be participating, but I do wish you good luck Frank!

The snark is kind of out of control on the boards lately. Some of the questions for Frank seem reasonable, but the tone is like a bunch of mean girls in a High school movie.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the opinions in this thread (and will never be a 52s customer for some of these reasons), but the more some of you post, the more angry/silly/snarky/irrelevant you sound. Also, those types of poorly constructed, mouthy posts are insulting to women, and I say that as a woman. So yah, no need to waste more time in this thread.

Just a quick question. If you have done this already then I do apologise. Have you approached big retailers in the US and setup meetings with buyers? Sent out samples to big retailers in an attempt to create relationships and potential business etc. A lot of the time you would probably be ignored, however there could just be that one lucky break you are looking for. You would have nothing to lose by doing this…as you have said it has been a struggle for 8 years. You have the passion, keep pushing your product. If you don’t get any responses keep on trying.

Wow. I wasn’t expecting to read this over my morning tea, but please, allow me a moment to defend myself.

My first Kickstarter was to raise $500 for a label dispenser, to speed up the process of applying labels. We raised nearly $18,000, a windfall to be sure and more than I had ever dreamed. YES, I went a little crazy. I bought a form, fill, seal machine, custom printed pouches, and my label dispenser.

The second Kickstarter was a fiasco that almost ending up costing me money because no matter how carefully I packaged the mason jar drinking glasses, they broke, and particularly the ones going overseas (that cost me a fortune in shipping charges to replace) but we did manage to get some custom point-of-purchase retail display boxes.

Our third Kickstarter lasted less than two weeks and the sole point was to be able to get us to a tradeshow in Las Vegas where we wanted to try to exhibit our teas. That was the worst one of all. I underestimated how much it would take to go to such a show, and then I kept telling myself it would work out, that we would get so many sales at the show it would make up for it. But the show was NOT good for us financially. I think we did about $800 in orders.

That said, I learned a LOT! I talked to a lot of distributors and other vendors at the show, and while it turned out that the show we went to, which was billed as a show for gift shops and other retailers, was primarily for toy stores and convenience stores (not a good fit for our teas). I learned more about what distributors and retailers are looking for in a product, and why our product was lacking in some ways (e.g. we only have one upc for all of our flavors). I learned a lot of other things as well, and while it nearly bankrupted us and I ended up having to put more money into the business and asking my silent partner to chip some in too, if I had it to do all over again, I would, because it was a hugely valuable education.

The fourth one I consider just pre-sales of our 12 Teas of Christmas, which we have done every year. I just thought we should do it on Kickstarter this year because a) it made fulfillment a little easier (separating the 12 Teas of Christmas orders from everything else), and b) I thought it would help expose the product to more people on the Kickstarter platform.

So, the short version of all of that is that, yes, I’ve made some mistakes, but the important thing is that I have learned from them. Common investment wisdom is that you should invest in someone who has failed a few times, because hopefully they have learned what doesn’t work.

The biggest mistake that I made, I think, is that despite the fact that I got my form, fill, seal machine (which really is amazingly helpful) in my first Kickstarter, I continued to think in terms of single unit pouches. I did this initially because the teas were so labor intensive and so expensive to produce that I never thought anyone would pay what I would need to charge for a larger quantity of teabags. But with the form, fill, seal machine, it’s not that bad. In fact, my costs now to create an 8-pack of teas is only about 3x the cost of what it takes to create a single pouch. This is something I hadn’t even considered calculating until about a month ago or so.

The thing is, when my dad passed away last month, it kind of jolted me into taking a really hard look at what I’m doing with the business. I’ve been at this for almost eight years now—longer if you count the many years I spent plotting and planning. We started as a tea bar and have evolved into an online tea vendor and through all of it, I have struggled. It’s not easy. I can tell you that if I gave it up today and got a job in accounting (I have a degree in accounting, believe it or not), my wife would be ecstatic.

After my dad died, I gave some thought to quitting. I seriously considered it. But after weighing all the pros and cons and considering all that I have learned so far and the equipment I’ve managed to purchase and my passion for tea (particularly iced tea), I decided instead that what I really need to do is refine my focus and work on what I am most passionate about.

For that reason, I have decided that March will be my last month producing 52teas. There are other people who are more passionate about hot teas, and one of them has agreed to take the reigns of 52teas for me. I will let her tell you about that in her time, but as for me, I want to make the best iced teas I can and I want to make Southern Boy Teas a household name. To do that, yes, I have turned back to Kickstarter one more time, and I’m asking for your support. I’m not asking you for a handout. I’m selling iced teas. I’m just doing it on the Kickstarter platform to try to generate enough support to fuel my dream. And if it doesn’t work, maybe I’ll give it up. I don’t know. I just know that I feel like I’m putting everything I have learned in the last eight years into something that I love and I’m hoping for the best.

This is probably way more than I should be sharing with everyone, but I feel like my customers are the biggest part of my company and I don’t see any reason not to share these things with you. Thanks for reading all of this and thank you for your support.

I’m unlocking this thread as it seems to have cooled off towards the end. It appears like I may have missed some of the more inflamatory remarks (mentions of sexism?) which are obviously never okay in this forums. If anyone knows what account posted those, please contact me directly with the information.

As to the overall conversation here, I don’t think anyone was inherently wrong in their posts. We want to allow vendors to be able to market their products here to their benefit and the benefit of the community, and we also want people to feel free to respond honestly and openly about tea companies and their products/practices. While we know everyone won’t always agree or even get along, we always encourage and expect interactions to be done in a postive and constructive fashion. There’s no need for destructive/inflamatory or negative remarks directed as any specific user. If you don’t feel you can be constructive in your criticisms, it’s best to not comment at all. (I’m saying this generally, it’s not intended to be directed at any specific users in this thread)

As always, we want people to feel free to post and interact on the forums without hesitation. Please help us keep this place a friendly and open environment for honest, constructive conversation. Thanks.

I feel like I brought up quite a few valid points in the post that was deleted, so I’m going to repost my response here. It does need to be recorded that after this thread was locked, Frank started a new post directed at me specifically instead of accepting the locked thread and moving on.

I’m editing a few things out in the hope of remaining civil, but I still feel this needs to be said, especially since in the other thread, Frank did ask to be called out.

…the purpose of locking a thread is to stop the conversation. So instead, you started a new thread instead of letting the old one die. And call me out in it specifically, nice. The old post is still there, people can still read it, there was no reason to make this thread.

If you don’t want to start arguments, don’t call people out by name in your post. But since you are obviously looking for a response from me, here goes.

I don’t like your teas. They are poor quality and the ones I have tried have not been worth the money paid, and that was three years ago when they were still reasonably priced. You post over and over begging for money, playing on people’s sympathies.

Am I supposed to be impressed that you maxed out nine credit cards? That doesn’t show commitment, it shows foolishness.

Regardless, it is all unprofessional. Complaining about how you can’t make it in America without being wealthy is unprofessional. Begging your customers to buy from you because you don’t have enough money to pay the bills tomorrow is unprofessional.

So there you are. I’ve called you out on your bad teas and your unprofessional attitude, like you asked. I can bet I’m not the only one rubbed the wrong way by this post.